Dish’s Sling TV To Add HBO Access Before ‘Game Of Thrones’ Premiere

Dish Network’s Sling TV, which launched back in February, has announced it will add one of the most popular premium cable networks on television to its lineup of programming. Dish’s TV subscription service will provide subscribers with access to HBO by April 12, 2015, just in time for the premiere of Game of Thrones season five.

According to Variety, Dish closed a multi-year pact with Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting and HBO, which will keep many of Turner’s brands (like TNT and Cartoon Network) on Dish’s regular pay-TV service, and bring HBO to Dish’s Sling TV non-cable option as well. HBO will offer a live channel as well as all of the network’s original shows to Sling members. The network will be available as an add-on for $15 a month on top of Sling TV’s $20 monthly fee.

“Sling TV is bringing HBO to our customers on all of our supported devices in time for one of the most important TV moments of the year,” said Roger Lynch, CEO of Dish’s Sling TV. “HBO delivers hit shows and movies that TV viewers crave, and with this addition we’re adding another heavy hitter to a lineup that includes ESPN, AMC, TNT and more.”

“It has always been our desire to make the HBO subscription widely accessible,” explained Tom Woodbury, HBO’s President of Global Distribution. “Sling TV is a part of that ongoing evolution and we believe HBO is a great addition to the platform.”

HBO still plans to release its own subscription option, HBO Now, as a stand-alone service. The network has inked a deal with Apple as the service’s exclusive launch partner. So previous to the Sling TV agreement, consumers would have been required to own an Apple device to subscribe to HBO Now. The Verge reports HBO is also creating a larger list of distribution partners like Cablevision who will be authorized to sell HBO Now subscriptions.

Dish hasn’t yet announced exactly when the HBO package will be available. But the pay-TV provider just promised a whole lot of people they’ll be able to watch the fifth season of Game of Thrones, so we expect Sling will have HBO up and running fairly soon.